Peter is Happy (Iron Man 2)
by AzaleaRill
Summary: Starting with the original Iron Man movie, I've replaced Happy Hogan with Peter Parker. Let's see what happens.
1. Chapter 1

This is the continuation through "Iron Man 2" of _Peter is Happy_. If you have not read the first two part, please visit my profile for the link.

* * *

(Iron Man 2)

Peter was overwhelmed

The Stark Expo was big! There were so many people!

"It's a zoo, Mr. Stark," Peter warned as he peered out a crack in the double doors. Tony, oblivious, pushed out the doors and Peter fell into the crowd.

"Hey, nice to see you. All right," Tony greeted his exuberant fans. "Thank you. I remember you. Give it to the kid."

It was Peter's job to collect business cards, phone numbers, messages - pretty much anything the mob shoved at him. His internship had ended almost six months ago, but Tony Stark kept finding little things for him to do.

"Larry! Hey, Larry! Kid, pencil some time in for Larry here soon."

Peter looked up into a wizened face topped by slicked back dark hair.

"Hey Mr. Stark, that's Larry King," Peter said, slightly breathless. "Mr. King, I like your show! Oh wait, sorry!" He grabbed for a pen, desperately flapping his hand as a business card stuck to it like it had been slathered in crazy glue.

Why did everything stick to him lately? There was a handprint on Aunt May's guestroom wall where the flowered wallpaper had come away when he'd put a hand against it to practice leaning nonchalantly. Maybe she wouldn't notice he had relocated that family picture to hang over it when he'd visited a few weeks ago. Maybe.

It happened again a moment later when he went to give a costumed child a signed picture of Iron Man and patted his helmeted head. Off came the helmet which went bouncing into the crowd when Peter tried (and succeeded) in shaking it off.

"Sorry! I'll get that back to you!"

He had to cram his way through people as he saw Tony being approached by what he took for an ardent admirer.

"Yeah, you found me," he heard Tony saying to the must-be-a-supermodel. "What are you up to later?"

"Serving subpoenas," she said wryly, proffering a stack of papers in a folder.

"Yikes," Tony said blandly, not even removing his hands from his pockets.

Peter only just intercepted the thick folder, catching it between his chin and the stack of other things he held. Luckily, the weird gluey thing that was going on finally quit for a second and he was able to dump everything into the back seat of the sporty little convertible that had sped to a stop beside them. He grabbed the subpoena while Tony bantered and began to leaf through it.

"You are hereby ordered to appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee-" said the not-a-model-but-could-have-been-is-probably-a-US-Marshal. "-tomorrow morning at 9 am."

Tony looked thoughtful, then asked: "Kid, how far to DC?"

"Uh, 250 miles?" The teen said quizzically, looking up from a muddle of legal terms he'd been trying to figure out as he leaned against the car.

Tony opened the driver's side door and, without preface, pushed Peter just hard enough on the shoulder to tip him into the back seat of the tiny convertible. "I'll drive, you read," he said, starting the engine and stepping on the gas to peel out in a flurry of un-stuck business cards.


	2. Chapter 2

So, it wasn't like they'd become close or anything, just that there seemed to be a lot of little things Mr. Stark needed doing and Peter was handy. Handy in a "I think I have an office/room at the house and I look at a lot of papers can I please help you with some tech" kind of way. He was filling out a war-and-peace length document that had to do with a year's worth of parking permits around the Stark Expo when his e-mail dinged. It was a company-wide email bearing Tony's address, but that didn't surprise Peter. He, and the rest of Stark Industries often received e-mails straight from Tony containing such pressing matters as "should I eat waffles for dinner on Thursday? If dinner is at two a.m., and eat waffles, is it breakfast? Can I have waffles for dinner and breakfast at the same time?"

This one said: "Pepper's the boss now. Do what she says."

Before Peter could fully process this, a sensation that he could only describe as a hitting your funny-bone and eating something sour at the same time and saying, if it were a tiny voice, "_something soft and round is going to hit you in the back it's not too dangerous but just wanted to let you know_." Peter swiveled swiftly in his chair, not sure if he'd heard something or felt something. A boxing glove punched him gently in the face. Tony was in the doorway holding the mate to the glove he'd tossed at Peter.

"Nice timing! Tony said. "Hey, since you are around and handy, I need a sparring partner."

Peter didn't even try the "Uh, Mr. Stark, I don't think I'm qualified to spar because I don't know how" line because it didn't matter. If Tony Stark wanted you to spar, or read legal papers in the dark and wind while traveling 100 miles per hour, or try drinking a "chlorophyll" concoction to make sure the human body could process it and it wasn't just a robot/Jarvis recipe that would make him into swamp thing, you just did it.

Helmeted, padded, and gloved, Peter bounced around the ring while Tony, who only wore the gloves, took pop shots at the punch mitts that he held up. He was having trouble concentrating because that mousey tingle voice thing kept bothering him with "_you should duck now you know you could hit him right there duck again elbow._" That one didn't make much sense until Tony's elbow slipped past the mitts and clipped Peter's nose.

"What was that?" he yelled at the wasp-buzz-radar-blip.

Tony was actually kind of taken aback thinking, Peter was talking to him. "Mixed martial arts?" he suggested. "It's been around for…" He trailed off as someone entered the room.

"I promise, this is the only time I will ask you to sign over your company," said Pepper, interrupting both teenager and man's staring daze caused by the red-ed who had come in to acquire signatures.

Peter blinked. Tony really had made Pepper the boss.

_I'm new at this but that red-haired lady is weird. _Peter made frantic "get away bug" motions in the air though the sense felt more like chewing tin foil crossed with realizing there is a fly swimming around in the drink of soda in your mouth.

"Can you give her a lesson?"

Suddenly realizing he'd lost the train of the conversation, Peter tried to refocus and saw that Tony was helping the demure looking assistant-lady into the ring.

All Peter could do was squeak, "sure." As he frantically tried to think of what to do, she squinted at him like he was dark matter - a very confusing mixture of everything and nothing. Peter decided he'd better do something and began to hop around somewhat idiotically.

In the background, Pepper and Tony were arguing. The women turned at a question from Tony and Peter decided he'd at least use his knowledge of movie trivia and began to quote Bruce Lee from Enter the Dragon. "Rule number one, never take your eyes…" he went in to bop her between the shoulder blades.

Little buzzy Mcbuzzer said/prickled _shut up shut up shut up don't do that!_

The next thing he knew, he was on the mat. A blur had happened with her arms, legs, and… ankles?

"Oh my god, Peter!" he heard Pepper yell.

"I slipped!" he automatically protested. Then decided he needed a little nap.


	3. Chapter 3

Peter was in Europe at the Monaco Grand Prix because Tony had passed him in the hallway, said "hold this" and then handcuffed him to a really heavy metal suitcase that whirred every once in a while. It was another one of those "don't-bother-to-say-anything" kind of moments.

One thing did bother him during the trip though. The suitcase had seemed really heavy to start with, but now every time he picked it up (which was to go anywhere) it seemed to get lighter? One time he even picked it up to follow the Stark retinue and the "it's heavy" thought his brain associated with it coupled with the muscles getting ready to heave it up caused him to nearly fall backwards down a flight of stairs when it turned out to be as light as a box of kittens. Luckily, the crazy super-gluey thing was back. He was able to stick to the handrail and fling himself forward, the momentum of which made it seem look like he was only running to catch up. Peter would have blamed it on weird Stark tech going on with the suitcase, but he had already nearly ripped the door off a car ("it was the wind!") and accidentally sent a 300 lb. paparazzi tumbling just trying to shoo him out of the way.

He stood in the corner of the room where a very nice Grand Prix watch party was going on and was thinking about letting Jarvis (really, the nicest invisible voice that he knew) do some doctor-y things when the mosquito-buzz-cat-purr-sense said _ding ding._

"Hello Peter. Can you point me to where Mr. Stark might be?"

It was the N lady! Naomi, Natali, Natasha… he couldn't remember, but she made him sweat! Then, the cat-purr turned into a motorcycle-vacuum-cleaner when a man he recognized as Justin Hammer stepped up.

"Stark is here? Where?" He focused on Peter for a moment in a slight, alcohol induced fuzz. "Hey buster, is that a hickey?"

Peter yanked up the collar of his shirt and thought his whole body would burst into flame right then. "A hick- No!" he protested. "I fell down…" _on this lady's medial malleolus because she had her ankles wrapped around my neck and now I look like I've got a hickey_!

Nat-Nao-Nev gave him that same "dark matter" squint, this time with a tiny hint of a smile.

"On someone's lips," Jason Hammer hummed into his drink, looking around the room as if to find this "someone".

"Hey, Natalie, nice to see you!" Tony Stark walked through their little tableau with Pepper in tow, who looked flabbergasted to see the woman.

They walked off in a flurry of conversation. Peter let out a huge sigh of relief and relaxed a bit, actually enjoying the next 10 minutes of just sitting and people watching… until he realized he was watching Tony Stark on the TV! The man jumped the barricade on the Grand Prix track and settled into the seat of a waiting vehicle. Then everything happened super-fast because…well…race cars.

All of a sudden there was a guy with burning jump ropes? A guy cutting cars in half with burning jump ropes? A guy cutting _Tony's _car in half with a burning jump rope? Peter would have just stood there staring stunned at the TV had Pepper not grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the restaurant, shoved him into the driver's seat of a car and yelled: "Go, go!"

Tony had said she was the boss, so Peter put his foot down and drove! He wasn't sure how they were supposed to help when they got to the part of the track where Tony was, especially since Peter was handcuffed to a suitcase, but he soon became too occupied with avoiding oncoming race-cars once he'd crashed through the track barrier to think about it. He felt Pepper struggling to undo the cuff from his wrist and the suitcase slid away across the seat as Peter veered left and right to avoid oncoming (race-car!) traffic.

They came within view of the flaming-jump-rope guy and there was suddenly a huge explosion. Peter could do aught but drive through the ball of flame while jamming the brakes. Something brought the vehicle to an abrupt, jarring stop. Somehow (_buzz zip good job) _Peter had managed to get Mr. Jump-Rope pinned between the car and track barrier wall without even trying.

"Hey," Tony Stark suddenly wrenched open the driver side door. "Were you heading for him or me?"

Peter didn't get a chance to respond because a flaming jump-rope sliced the car door off and Tony stumbled backward.

"Oops, buzzzz?" Peter found himself shouting, because now the hedge-trimmer-tazer thing seemed to have gone to sleep! Turning to look behind him to check traffic (always careful) he backed the car up quickly, then jammed it back into drive and mashed the gas to crunch the guy again.

"Peter, the case!" Pepper was yelling. "Give him the case."

_Yeah, I would need a change of underwear too_, thought Peter while adrenaline kept him stomping on the gas as if he could drive the car right through the body and barrier in front of it. No luck, because a certain flaming-jump-rope cut the car in half right beside him. Instinct made him grab at the suitcase before it slid away with the other half of the car and he threw the (probably-to-heavy-for-a-normal-person-to-do-that) case toward Tony. Then the airbag deployed and Peter found himself muffled in nylon while an apparently portable Iron-Man suit popped out of the case and Tony took over the fight.


	4. Chapter 4

Tony Stark didn't clip anymore suitcases to Peter's arm. He didn't ask him to spar or throw him in the boxing ring with a pretty lady who gave him ankle hickey's. He didn't pile paperwork on Peter even _not_ while going 110 mph on some back road where there might just be a cow in the street.

What Tony did do was his house and squashed Peter's space along with it. That small area of computer, desk and bed were the only thing that Peter had felt was sort of "his," in a long… well, ever. That, more than anything, seemed like the official end to his "internship." Trying not to think about what he'd lost but all that he had to gain (a long, hot bus ride with a variety of people including a seat mate who would probably be holding a large box on his lap and part of Peter's - sigh) he stepped through the open door into Ms. Potts executive office at Stark Industries.

"Ms. Potts, this bus ticket says I have a transfer in Oklahoma City, but then it goes all the way to Dallas and I transfer there to a bus that goes to Wichita? Can Stark Industries just buy the bus-line and...uh..." He stopped suddenly as he found himself facing Pepper and Tony at the desk having an animated conversation.

"I need you to leave."

Peter had one of those desperate, sweaty moments before he realized she was talking to Tony. "And you're not going anywhere," she said to Peter.

"Wheels up in 25 minutes," said a voice behind him that set the buzzy-hand-saw-ice-chipper thing off. Natalie Rushman walked by him and caught the ticket in his hand as she passed. It would have been a smooth move, if the ticket hadn't become made of industrial strength fly paper and (sigh) stuck tight to his fingers. He was pulled off balance a couple of steps forward as he came with the ticket he was stuck to. Natalie stopped and there was that squint, this time with a slight tilt of the head that said: "I'm going to prove the existence of dark-matter here before too long." She let go of the ticket and turned back to Pepper.

"Anything else boss?"

"No," Pepper said, standing and gathering her things. "We're headed out now." She crossed the room leaving Tony sitting at the desk and, turning Peter toward the door, tugged him along. Natalie followed.

"What?" Tony shouted after them. "I lost both kids in the divorce?"

Peter, at that moment, would have given anything for the hand-gluey-thing to affect his feet and affix him to the floor so he didn't have to leave. Of course what Tony had said was just a joke, ha ha funny. Peter only just stopped himself from absurdly calling out "no! I wanna stay with dad!"

…

Once again, Peter was at the wheel of the Rolls Royce… well, a Rolls Royce. There had been a few now. He stopped in front of the main Stark Expo auditorium to let Pepper out. "Peter, this thing is already half-way done, just keep the car here, ok?"

"Sure thing," he said, but his mind had really gone all _Blues Brothers: _"It's 3000 miles to Malibu, I've got a full tank of gas, I don't smoke so no cigarettes, it's dark … and now I have a crazy-commando-secretary sitting in the car with me." Natalie slipped into the back seat to wait as well.

"Not going anywhere for a while, right Peter?" she said.

Ok, a mind-reading-crazy-commando-secretary.

Small talk was not Peter's strong point. Actually, it was his non-existent point, so when all hell broke loose a few minutes later, he was kind-of relieved. Natalie began to go back and forth with Pepper on her ear bud.

"Hammer Industries? Got it. Peter, drive."

Peter decided right then that he had a secure future as a Rolls Royce Racer. Was there such a thing? He could invent it. Then there was the distracting sound of zippers from the back seat and he momentarily forgot about racing and driving in general. The rear-view mirror was full of black bra as Natalie stripped out of her shirt.

"When we arrive-" she was saying "-I need you to watch the perimeter. I'm going to enter the facility and take down the target. Watch the road!"

Peter's eyes flicked back to the street just in time for him to mash the breaks, almost slamming into a Hammer Drone that landed to block the road in front of them. It pointed a weapon at the car, but was suddenly and (oddly, for a drone) distracted by a thrown rock. Peter looked to see a little kid in an Iron-Man helmet throwing stones at the drone.

_Buzz buzz hey that's the same kid how funny _went the biting-horsefly-ice-cream-headache, which then reminded him to push a certain button in the car. The child threw another rock just as the Stark Rolls launched a pair of mini-missiles at the drone and reduced it to scrap metal.

"Nice work kid!" Peter yelled out the window as he put the gas pedal to the floor again. To his credit, the child, seeing who it was, slapped both hands down on top of his helmet and ran away as fast as he could.

After careening around a few corners and running a light or two (_buzz car buzz car buzz building buzz turn signal) _Peter did a perfect sideways hydroplaning parallel park in front of Hammer Industries. There were no other vehicles, so he could have just stopped the car anywhere, but adrenaline said: "make it count man!"

Natalie jumped out of the car almost before it stopped moving and was working on the security pad to the door before Peter tumbled his way out after her.

"Stay in the car," she said in a tone meant to brook no opposition.

"I'm not staying in the car," Peter said back like a petulant kid.

The security panel gave a few confused blips and bleeps and then the door to the facility slid open.

"I said stay in the car," Natalie jogged through the doors and Peter noticed she was in different, very form-fitting, clothes.

"What are you wearing?" he demanded, the adrenaline having taken his tongue hostage. He sprinted through the doors after her. "I'm not letting you go in there alone!" Then his tongue freed itself from its abductee, slapped his brain around a little and he recalled she could handle herself like a ninja. "I just want to help," he finished lamely, coming to a stop as she scoped out the corridor ahead of them.

"You want to help?" she said, turning on him in fierce frustration. "Keep the car running!"

_dot dot line line spider crawling up your spine_

"Hey, look ou-" before Peter could put the last consonant on the word, Natalie had efficiently taken down the security guard that came out of nowhere and tried to jump on her. She hadn't even looked before starting to move!

Guards seemed to come out of the walls at that moment, most of them aimed at tackling Natalie, but one taking special interest in Peter.

_Oh crap oh crap duck swing right there ow my hand ow my face kick elbow I know what that means now thank you go for the face maybe undercut palm up WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT GLOP THAT JUST SHOT OUT OF MY HAND_

Pale, webby stuff covered the guards face and seemed stuck fast to eyes, nose and mouth! The man stumbled backward clawing at it. He hit a wall pretty hard knocked himself out cold.

"I got him!" Peter shouted in jubilation, turning with fists up to help Natalie with the other half-dozen.

The corridor was full of groaning bodies, some dangling from the ceiling. Natalie was nowhere in sight.

"You are welcome!" Peter said, striking a _yes ma'am _pose for a moment. Then he went to check on his own handiwork.

…

_Dear Aunt May,_

_I'm writing a letter because my computer got squashed and you don't e-mail anyway. Also, I don't actually know your phone number I have just realized. Anyway, Stark Industries has asked me to stay a little longer and help-out with some tech stuff since Mr. Stark's house is being remodeled and he doesn't have any paperwork for me to do. I know you won't mind because you are putting up new wall paper in the guest room. I'm feeling really good and have a lot of energy. Turning 17 has a big effect on a person I guess._

_Love Peter._


End file.
